


Darkest Hour

by QueenHarleyQuinn



Category: Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, Oblivious, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sharing a Bed, saying i love you without saying i love you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2021-01-29 18:03:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21414361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenHarleyQuinn/pseuds/QueenHarleyQuinn
Summary: “I’m not sleeping on that couch, it’s stiff and awful.”“Well if you’d -- you’d taken the goddamn bed like I offered you wouldn’t have to deal w-with the couch.”“And hear you bitch and moan about it the next mornin’? No thanks.”(Post-Movie, somewhat fix-it.)
Relationships: Cliff Booth & Rick Dalton, Cliff Booth/Rick Dalton
Comments: 16
Kudos: 177





	Darkest Hour

**Author's Note:**

> Title: Dedicated To The One I Love by The Mamas and The Papas

All things considered, the lounge chair in Rick’s backyard was pretty comfortable. About as comfortable as Cliff’s lumpy mattress in the trailer and at least ten times better than the awful leather couch in Rick’s living room, which is what really mattered. That thing was fine for sitting on but laying down and trying to catch some sleep? Fuck, Cliff would have had more luck with floating in the pool. 

A little over a week had passed since the hippie attack and trip to the hospital and general upheaval of Rick and Cliff’s everyday life. Cliff blinked as he looked up at the twinkling stars. Did he get out of the hospital yesterday? Or the day before that? Shit, that was the problem with those fucking pain pills. Days slipped through his fingers like sand through a sieve. Well, either yesterday or the day before, Cliff took an overpriced cab trip back to Van Nuys from the hospital. Despite Rick’s insistence, Cliff would rather spend fifteen bucks than expose Rick to the fact that Cliff  _ isn’t _ the shatterproof soldier Rick thinks he is.

Rick looks at him with shining eyes and wonder, like he’s a goddamn constellation or something. Why should Cliff go and wreck a thing like that? Everyone else in this town spits on the ground after saying Cliff’s name. Like he’s a curse.

Not that it bothers him, it really doesn’t. Everyone else can glare and bare their teeth and throw him off sets. Fuck them, all those pricks who think they know everything there is to know about a guy like Cliff Booth. 

Rick’s never been like that, God only knows  _ why _ . Rick switched to smoking Cliff’s brand of cigarettes just to make sure that they’d always have enough on hand. Cliff’s pretty sure that’s the purest kind of love there is.

And he is, vaguely, aware that his understanding of love and loyalty is skewed. Rick’s is too, though, so at least they’re evenly matched.

A light flashes on in the master bedroom, then to the right in the hallway, and again in the living room. All the way to the kitchen where the distinct sound of a blender crushing ice could be heard. 

Cliff, still staring up at the inky sky, guesses that it is one in the morning. He shakes his head imagining Rick in his briefs and some ridiculous robe salting the rim of a glass and pouring the margarita in. Most people get up in the middle of the night to get a drink of water or to take a piss. Not Rick.

The back door slides open and Brandy trots around the pool and to the side of the yard where Cliff is resting. 

“Jesus, Cliff, what the fuck are -- are you doin’ out here?” Rick asks, his voice tired and soft but bewildered all the same.

Cliff turns his head slightly to watch as Rick approaches, “Your couch is shit,” Cliff says, squinting as he notices the whole pitcher in Rick’s hand with a straw stuck in it, “What? You run out of clean glasses or somethin’?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Rick sips from his straw, “And get inside the h-house.”

Cliff folds his arms behind his head, “S’actually pretty nice out here.” It was still warm out, the last dregs of summer not quite gone yet. Cliff was no stranger to roughing it outside, and this was  _ certainly _ not roughing it.

“I’m not letting you f-fuck up your hip by sleeping out on lawn furniture. C’mon,” Rick nods back toward the house.

“I’m not sleeping on that couch, it’s stiff and awful.”

“Well if you’d -- you’d taken the goddamn bed like I offered you wouldn’t have to deal w-with the couch.”

“And hear you bitch and moan about it the next mornin’? No thanks.”

“I wouldn’t,” Rick yawns and then grabs Cliff’s arm with his unoccupied hand, “c’mon, I don’t feel s-safe with you out here.” And there are no words in Cliff’s vocabulary to refuse Rick when Rick exposes his goddamn insides like that. Like it’s okay. Like it’s all he knows how to do.

Cliff was -  _ is _ \- satisfied with his station in life. Fully prepared to live out the rest of his days fueled by pain pills and cheap beer and canned or boxed food. To fade into nothing but a rumor – the old man who lives out behind the drive-in. He used to be a stunt double. A soldier. A killer. Maybe he’d drive up and down the coast for the rest of his, likely short, life and do whatever urban legends do. 

He and Rick were supposed to be over. He had made peace with that the moment the knife went into his side. His final act of stunt work. His goodbye.

But here Cliff Booth was; being pulled into the house by Rick Dalton.

Francesca left. That was a big part of the reason Cliff was there tonight, despite the fact that neither of them had addressed it. Rick had invited him over in a half-mumbled phone call. Officially – although how official can a lousy phone call be? – Cliff came to pick up Brandy and bring her back to the trailer. To thank Rick for keeping an eye on her while Cliff was in the hospital.

Unofficially… 

“Shit, man,” Cliff said sinking into the mattress, stretching out leisurely, “No wonder it was always a pain in the ass to get you out of bed.” Brandy curls up at the end of the bed, right by Cliff’s ankles despite the ample room of the California king.

“Yeah, yeah, fuck you,” Rick says, standing in the doorway, “J-just let me know if you need anything, alright?”

“Where the hell do you think you're going?” Cliff says sitting up before Rick can walk away.

Rick swallows, “The couch?”

Cliff rolls his eyes and pats the empty room. “C’mon, no point in that.”

They share a  _ lot _ of things. Smokes and drinks and, one time, Barbara from casting (even though neither of them knew that she was two-timing until much later). Cliff would be surprised if sharing a bed, especially one as massive as this, was the boundary. The uncrossable line. 

Rick swallows again, shifting his weight from one leg to the other as he thought. “You sure?”

“If it’s going to save me from hearing your whining then yeah. Get over here.”

Without saying anything Rick shuts the bedroom door and pads over to the other side of the bed. Only a sliver of moonlight peaks through the gap in the curtains, but Cliff’s eyes adjust to the dark room easily. He lays flat on his back and stares at the motionless ceiling fan as Rick slips out of his robe and slides under the covers.

Rick tosses and turns. Trying out his side, then his stomach, then his back. Cliff can tell that he’s trying to be quiet about it, trying not to be so obnoxious but it’s unsuccessful as he wiggles around.

“Shit, are you like this every time you bed someone new?”

Rick reaches out and whacks Cliff on the shoulder, “I-I am not  _ bedding _ you.”

Cliff chuckles because he’s sure Rick’s face is turning red the way it does whenever Rick gets flustered. This mental image is pretty much confirmed when Rick turns over, away from Cliff, and sighs dramatically.

“Hey,” Cliff says, taking pity on him, “if this isn’t working I can give the couch another go.”

“N-no it’s not that,” Rick whispers, “I just haven’t been sleeping well since...y’know.”

Cliff nods as his side aches dully, “Yeah. I know.”

Rick rolls over again in Cliff’s direction. “It’s just so  _ fucked _ Cliff, I -- I dunno how you deal with it. Shit, everytime I smell chlorine I feel my stomach drop. Might get the pool filled in, m-maybe getting all grass or something so I don’t have to think about those fuckers everytime I’m in my b-backyard.”

Cliff turns his head and faces Rick, unsure of what to say but his mouth opens anyway, “I just...block it out.”

That’s not quite right. Maybe during the war it was an active practice – squeezing his eyes shut at night and pretending that he was anyone else but himself. Pretending that someone else had pulled the trigger or snapped those necks. Telling himself that if he did any of those things that it was for survival and survival is good. 

Then after Cliff’s wife...well, blocking things out was second nature. Auto-pilot clicked on whenever something got to be  _ too much _ . Cliff’s mind would become blank and then, suddenly, a half hour has passed with nothing but blood under his nails to show for it.

“What? How?” Rick asks, not at all shy about asking. Hell, maybe even a little envious like Cliff’s hiding some great secret from him.

Cliff shrugs and focuses on the spot on the wall over Rick’s shoulder.

“You’re just st-stronger than me,” Rick sniffles.

Cliff snorts, “Ain’t nothing strong about it…”

The comment gets lost in Rick’s falling tears and at that point it doesn’t really matter what Rick’s crying about – home invasion, murder, Cliff’s hip, the squares of carpet cut up and taken for evidence.

Being wife-less.

A combination of all those things.

Cliff finds himself gathering Rick into his arms, without a second thought. His fingers trace soothing patterns onto his scalp and neck as Rick cries into Cliff’s shoulder. Rick’s halfway on top of him and the weight of it shouldn’t feel so good, that’s for damn sure. But it does, so Cliff winds an arm around his lower back to keep him there.

“I used to fuckin’ like this house and -- and now it’s all shit and I can’t f-fix it,” Rick’s words are swallowed up by shakey breathes and general lack of coherency, “And I don’t want you t-to go and I -- I want-”

“Hey, hey,” Cliff whispers, “does it look like I’m going anywhere to you? You got me pinned down pretty good.”

“Ah shit,” Rick hisses, like he’s just now realized that he’s all but straddling Cliff. “Fuck, I’m just ruinin’ everything.” He scrambles away and the loss of contact makes Cliff feel like he’s untethered and floating away.

Cliff reaches over and squeezes Rick’s shoulder, “You’re not ruining anything.”

“My marriage.” Rick scoffs.

“Only if you asked those hippie fucks to come scare the shit out of Francesca.”

An uneasy quiet settles over both of them. Cliff’s hand is still on Rick’s shoulder, his thumb moving in tender circles.

“That’s not wh-why she left.”

“Oh?”

Rick looks at Cliff for a moment, through his lashes, “Said she couldn’t be married to someone who viewed her as a s-second ch-choice.”

Cliff’s thumb stops moving. _Oh_.

Before Cliff can do anything else Rick flinches away, like he’s been burned. He tries to play it off with a laugh, “Who the fuck knows what that even means. S-some cryptic bullshit,” Rick says, turning over and scooting away from Cliff, “Maybe something got lost in translation. Doesn’t really matter.”

And Cliff can only roll his eyes as he scoots after Rick and loops an arm over him. “Guess it doesn’t.”

Rick sighs like it’s the first taste of water after a drought as he leans back into Cliff’s embrace. “The fuck d-does she know anyway?”

Cliff shakes his head, “Not a goddamn thing.”

**Author's Note:**

> I genuinely thought I was done with my bullshit but I guess I'm not. Whoops!


End file.
